Precedence-Based, Preemptive, and Power-Constrained Test Scheduling

Test scheduling is a major problem in system-on-a-chip (SOC) test automation. In this chapter1, we extend previous work on scheduling presented in Chapter 5 to develop an integrated framework that addresses several important test scheduling problems. We first present efficient techniques to determine optimal SOC test schedules with precedence constraints, i.e., schedules that preserve desirable orderings among tests. We then present a new algorithm that uses preemption to obtain optimal test schedules in polynomial time. Finally, we present a new method for determining optimal power-constrained schedules. Experimental results for a representative SOC show that test schedules can be obtained in reasonable CPU time for all cases.